Bubble-wrap clothing for senior citizens and active persons

ABSTRACT

An article of clothing wear for softening the impact resulting from a wearer&#39;s fall to the ground includes an article of protective clothing constructed in whole or in part with bubble-wrap composition at selected elbow, hip, knee, ankle or shoulder denominated areas thereof, with the article of protective clothing being sized to be worn under or over the wearer&#39;s own fabric clothing.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Research and development of this invention and Application have not beenfederally sponsored, and no rights are given under any Federal program.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

A Provisional Patent Application covering the invention described hereinwas filed on May 13, 2011, and assigned Ser. No. 61/518,819.

REFERENCE TO A MICROFICHE APPENDIX

NOT APPLICABLE

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to lessening the effects of slip and fallaccidents, in general, and to a reduction in the high medical costsassociated with the care and treatment of injuries that result to seniorcitizens and active persons who happen to be the victims of suchaccidents, in particular.

2. Description of the Related Art

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every yearapproximately 1 in 3 senior citizens age 65 and above suffer from anaccidental fall. Of these, 20 to 30 percent suffer injuries that aresevere enough to impact their ability to lead active, independent lives.While slip and fall accidents can happen to just about anyone, these aremore common in senior citizens who may have a variety of health issuesthat can increase the risk of fall. For example, seniors may strugglewith proper balance and gait, may have vision problems, and may have ahost of other issues that can impact their ability to prevent the fallto begin with. As will thus be understood, seniors have a much higherrisk of being seriously injured in a slip and fall accident than youngadults or children.

Specifically, hip fractures from falls happen to a reported two hundredand fifty thousand seniors each year. Significant other falls lead toelbow, shoulder and knee fractures or derangements. And, as will beunderstood, all these numbers frequently result from the elderly beingprone to osteoporosis which makes their bones brittle—making them morevulnerable to breaks or cracks. With vulnerable bones and tendons, aresult oftentimes is that a tiny break can cripple the elderlyindividual, since it takes a longer period for those fractures to mend.

Slip and fall accidents result in huge costs to the elderly. Beinginjured in a nonfatal fall can lead to extensive hospitalizationexpenses, doctor fees, medication costs, x-rays and diagnostic costs;physical therapy expenses and other related medical expenses frequentlyfollow. For those who are still employed, loss of income usually followsbecause of days lost from employment while recuperating. Then, when thepatient returns home, he/she frequently finds that enhancements areneeded to the house or apartment to help them experience the mobilitythey once had.

For these reasons and, additionally, because of increasing numbers offatalities resulting from older adult falls—, many recommendations havebeen made to try to help reduce falling accidents for seniors when inthe home or apartment. Among these are:

a. Discarding area rugs or loose carpeting that might cause a fall;

b. Installing solid hand rails around all staircases;

c. Having grab bars installed around bathrooms, especially near showersand baths;

d. Utilizing slip-proof flooring in the shielding of stairs;

e. Utilizing night-lights and no-slip tiles;

f. Drying wet floors immediately right after spills occur; and

g. Keeping often-used materials on low shelves, so that there is no needto be climbing on chairs to retrieve things that are frequently kept onhigh shelves.

Besides wearing low heel, comfortable shoes equipped with rubberizedsoles for safe grip, avoiding household slippers and footwear withleather bottoms or high heel sandals, recommendations from the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention also include:

a. Exercising, to strengthen bones and improving one's sense of balance;

b. Making sure that medications needed are not placed at locations whichput the individual at risk for dizziness or drowsiness when reaching forthem; and

c. Making sure that eye examinations occur regularly.

Nevertheless, fall related death rates and fall injury rates continue toincrease significantly—interestingly, at a rate higher for women thanfor men. In fact, almost 2.0 million older Americans per year go to theemergency room, or are taken to the emergency room, for fall relatedinjuries sustained both indoors and outdoors, as well.

While these fatal fall deaths and nonfatal fall fractures lead to thesefindings because of the brittleness of the bones and their being moreprone to breaking with age, these occurrences really are not limitedjust to senior citizens. In particular, more and more of thesereportings have noted the increased numbers of injuries toskateboarders, skiers, ice skaters, motorcycle riders, bicyclists andjust about anyone who happens to suffer a fall whether from a slip orfrom a trip, or otherwise.

OBJECTS OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to deal with these situationsby reducing the medical aspects of an injury resulting from aslip-and-fall accident.

It is an object of the invention, also, to provide a solution that willgo far in reducing the required medical treatment—and therefor itscosts—in those instances where the slip-and-fall occurrence continues toresult in injury, but through a reduction in the intensity thereof.

It is a further object of the invention to effectively tailor thesolution to those senior citizens and active persons who are moresusceptible to slip-and-fall accident injuries than others may be.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Understanding that as people age, they begin to lose mineral density intheir bones, that a greater risk of bone fracture is presented when asenior adult who suffers from this condition falls, and that thesefractures may take a longer time to heal because of the senior'sadvanced years (separate and apart from other medical complications thatmay be exacerbated by the fall) the present invention comprises acomposite of articles of clothing with “impact softeners” of bubble-wrapcomposition as protective components.

In one aspect of the invention, the impact softeners would beessentially patched at those areas of the body where experience hasshown the most common types of injuries result from the slip or fall. Ina second aspect of the invention, the entire area of clothing would bemanufactured of such bubble-wrap composition. Both arrangements,however, will allow for the incorporation of different gauge thicknessesfor the bubble-wrap for different types of activity applications.

As will become clear from the following description, a preferredembodiment of the invention would entail the wearing of an entirearticle of impact softening bubble-wrap clothing under the user's ownfabric clothes, to be eventually discarded and disposed of after one orseveral wearings dependent upon the quality and integrity of itsindividual manufacture. One advantage of such an arrangement would bethat the user would just have to pay for the bubble-wrap article of wearinstead of having to join with it the costs of whatever cloth fabricmight have to be co-joined with the impact protector for thosemanufactures where the impact softener were provided only in thesusceptible areas where injury might be caused. Also, as will be seenfrom this preferred arrangement, the bubble-wrap composition could alsoserve as a heat insulator within the user's own clothing, effective inthe cooler climates in differing geographical areas, during differenttimes of the year. And, further, if selected to be worn not under aportion of the user's clothing, the bubble-wrap composition couldalternatively be worn over and outside of it, giving rise to an abilityto have the bubble-wrap clothing not only of different gaugethicknesses, but with different colorations and designs in providinguser selected fashion statements. An inexpensive manner of protectionresults with either arrangement and simply with the selection of sizebeing determinant of whether the bubble-wrap is worn under or over thewearer's fabric clothing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features of the invention will be more fully understoodfrom a consideration of the following description, taken in connectionwith the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGS. 1 a-1 c illustrate first embodiments of the invention to be wornas a unitary protective garment under a user's normal clothing wear; and

FIGS. 2 a-2 c are illustrations of comparable articles of clothingembodying the invention, showing how an impact-softening cushion barriercan be provided only at selected areas to overlie different injurysusceptible points on a user's body.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Recognizing that the most susceptible areas of injury possible from afall are the elbows, hips, knees, shoulders and tailbone, the presentinvention envisions the wearing of articles of clothing with “impactsofteners” of bubble-wrap composition. The bubble wrap would serve as aprotective barrier overlying the most susceptible areas of the bodywhere an injury or fracture might occur—be it at an elbow area, a hiparea, a knee area or a shoulder area of the wearer. Different gaugethicknesses of bubble-wrap will be understood as being available forselection based upon the activity level of the wearer, their bodymakeup, and the susceptibility to injury due to their advancing age.Thicker bubble-wrap might be a matter of choice, for example, forskateboarders, skiers, ice skaters, motorcycle riders, and bicyclistswhere the momentum built up during the activity usually leads to a“harder” impact with the ground as compared to a person who slips, tripsand falls while just walking along a sidewalk and who just falls fromdizziness. While children and younger adults are able to recover muchfaster from these recreation related injuries and with less discomfort,the protective clothing of the invention still can be considered to be atype of “armor shield” protector. In fact, athletes might consider thewearing of a full body version of the bubble-wrap material protector,especially when worn beneath their usual clothing attire. In eitherevent, just the softening of the impact could well give rise to reducingthe high medical costs associated with the care and treatment of suchinjury causes.

Three utilizations of the invention are initially envisioned: a) a fulllength long-sleeve bubble-wrap shirt to be worn over a conventionalundershirt to protect the upper-body, with a shirt or blouse then beingworn over the bubble shirt; b) bubble-wrap shorts or diapers to be wornover fabric undershorts or panties to protect the hip area and tail-boneareas, with the bubble shorts or panties being worn under full lengthtrousers, skirts or dresses; and c) bubble wrap capris worn undertrousers, skirts, or pants that extend the impact protection to belowthe knee cap. Such utilizations are shown in FIG. 1 a-1 c, respectively,where the impact fall softening results from constructing the goodssubstantially entirely of bubble-wrap composition.

And, as will be appreciated, existing articles of clothing could also bealtered by the sewing of these bubble-wraps of impact-lesseningprotectors in the form of patches, at the elbows, the hips, the knees,the shoulders—and even the ankles—to provide an armor shielding type ofprotection where only the area to be protected follows the location ofthe bubble-wrap composition construction. This realization will beunderstood to be particularly useful in other instances where a wearer'sactual impact with the ground might cause a bubble-wrap area to “pop”.There, it would be desirable to just slide a replacement bubble-wrapinto the “popped” area to continue the protection—available especiallywhen the patches are initially inserted into receiving-type pockets onthe garments in question. This utilization is shown in the comparableviews of FIGS. 2 a-2 c where the receiving-type pocket is depicted at12, to receive the bubble-wrap protector 10 in those instances where thebubble-wrap protector does not comprise the entire manufacture to beginwith.

A form of safety protection then results with the invention even in theevent of a disquieting fall.

While there have been described what are considered to be preferredembodiments of the invention, it will be readily appreciated by thoseskilled in the art that modifications can be made without departing fromthe scope of the teachings herein—for example, including appropriatelysized aperture openings between; individual bubbles of the wrap as ameans of promoting air circulation within the garment being worn inallowing it to breathe for added comfort. For at least such reason,therefore, resort should be had to the claims appended hereto for a trueunderstanding of the invention.

1. An article of clothing wear for softening the impact resulting from awearer's fall to the ground comprising: an article of protectiveclothing constructed with bubble-wrap composition at selected elbow,hip, knee, ankle or shoulder denominated areas thereof, with the articleof protective clothing being sized to be worn either under or over thewearer's own fabric clothing.
 2. The article of clothing wear of claim 1wherein the article of protective clothing is constructed substantiallyentirely of bubble-wrap composition in softening a resultant fallimpact.
 3. The article of clothing wear of claim 1 wherein the articleof protective clothing is constructed with the bubble-wrap compositionsubstantially only at the selected elbow, hip, knee, ankle or shoulderdenominated areas in softening a resultant fall impact.
 4. The articleof clothing wear of claim 3 wherein the article of protective clothingis constructed with pockets at said denominated areas in which patchesof bubble-wrap composition are selectively inserted.
 5. The article ofclothing wear of claim 3 wherein the article of protective clothing isconstructed with pockets at said denominated areas in which patches ofbubble-wrap composition are selectively removably inserted.